There was a streetlight directly overhead, but I had to wait where I was. I didn’t know whether he’d make a right or left leaving the building, and I had to be able to see him when he exited. Once I’d gotten my hands on him, I could drag him into the shadows.
My breathing had slowed to normal when I heard the external door to the building slam shut. I smiled. The residents know the door slams and are careful to let it close slowly.
I crouched down again and peered past the edge of the wall. A pudgy Japanese was walking briskly in my direction. The same guy I had seen with the attaché case in the subway station at Jinbocho. Benny. I should have known.
I stood up and waited, listening to his footsteps getting louder. When he sounded like he was about a meter away, I stepped out into the intersection.
He pulled up short, his eyes bulging. He knew my face, all right. Before he could say anything I stepped in close, pumping two uppercuts into his abdomen. He dropped to the ground with a grunt. I stepped behind him, grabbed his right hand, and twisted his wrist in a pain-compliance hold. I gave it a sharp jerk and he yelped.
“On your feet, Benny. Move fast, or I’ll break your arm.” I gave his wrist another hard jerk to emphasize the point. He wheezed and hauled himself up, making sucking noises.
I shoved him around the corner, put him facefirst against the wall, and quickly patted him down. In his overcoat pocket I found a cell phone, which I took, but that was all.
I gave a last jerk on his arm, then spun him around and slammed him up against the wall. He grunted but still hadn’t recovered enough wind to do more. I pinched his windpipe with the fingers of one hand and took an undergrip on his balls with the other.
“Benny. Listen very carefully.” He started to struggle, and I pinched his windpipe harder. He got the message. “I want to know what’s going on. I want names, and they better be names I know.”
I relaxed both grips a little, and he sucked in his breath. “I can’t tell you this stuff, you know that,” he wheezed.
I took up the grip on his throat again. “Benny, I’m not going to hurt you if you tell me what I want to know. But if you don’t tell me, I’ve got to blame you, understand? Tell me quick, no one’s going to know.” Again, a little more pressure on the throat — this time, cutting off all his oxygen for a few seconds. I told him to nod if he understood, and after a second or two with no air, he did. I waited another second anyway, and when the nodding got vigorous, I eased off the pressure.
“Holtzer, Holtzer,” he rasped. “Bill Holtzer.”
It was an effort, but I revealed no surprise at the sound of the name. “Who’s Holtzer?”
He looked at me, his eyes wide. “You know him! From Vietnam, that’s what he told me.”
“What’s he doing in Tokyo?”
“He’s CIA. Tokyo chief of station.”
Chief of station? Unbelievable. He obviously still knew just which asses to kiss.
“You’re a damn CIA asset, Benny? You?”
“They pay me,” he said, breathing hard. “I needed the money.”
“Why is he coming after me?” I asked, searching his eyes. Holtzer and I had tangled when we were in Vietnam, but he’d come out on top in the end. I couldn’t see how he’d still be carrying a grudge, even if I still carried mine.
“He said you know where to find a disk. I’m supposed to get it back.”
“What disk?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that in the wrong hands it would be detrimental to the national security of the United States.”
“Try not to sound like the Stepford bureaucrat, Benny. Tell me what’s on the disk.”
“I don’t know! Holtzer didn’t tell me. It’s need-to-know — you know that, why would he have told me? I’m just an asset, no one tells me these things.”
“Who’s the guy in my apartment with you?”
“What guy . . . ,” he started to say, but I snapped his windpipe shut before he could finish. He tried to suck in air, tried to push me away, but he couldn’t. After a few seconds, I eased off the pressure.
“If I have to ask you something twice again, or if you try to lie to me again, Benny, it’s going to cost you. Who is the guy in my apartment?”
“I don’t know him,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing. “He’s with the Boeicho Boeikyoku. Holtzer handles the liaison. He just told me to take him to your apartment so we could question you.”
The Boeicho Boeikyoku, or Bureau of Defense Policy, National Defense Agency, is Japan’s CIA.
“Why were you following me in Jinbocho?” I asked.
“Surveillance. Trying to locate the disk.”
“How did you find out where I live?”
“Holtzer gave me the address.”
“How did he get it?”
“I don’t know. He just gave it to me.”
“What’s your involvement?”
“Questions. Just questions. Finding the disk.”
“What were you supposed to do with me after you were done asking me your questions?”
“Nothing. They just want the disk.”
I pinched shut his windpipe again. “Bullshit, Benny, not even you could be that stupid. You knew what was going to happen afterwards, even if you wouldn’t have the balls to do it yourself.”
It was coming together. I could see it. Holtzer tells Benny to take this “Boeikyoku” guy to my apartment to “question” me. Benny figures out what’s going to happen. The little bureaucrat is scared, but he’s caught in the middle. Maybe he rationalizes that it’s not really his affair. Besides, Mr. Boeikyoku would take care of the wet stuff; Benny wouldn’t even have to watch.
The cowardly little weasel. I squeezed his balls suddenly and hard, and he would have cried out if I hadn’t had the grip on his throat. Then I let go in both places and he spilled to the ground, retching.
“Okay, Benny, here’s what you’re going to do,” I said. “You’re going to call your buddy at my apartment. I know he has a cell phone. Tell him you’re calling from the subway station. I’ve been spotted, and he needs to meet you at the station immediately. Use my exact words. If you use your own words or I hear you say anything that doesn’t fit with that message, I’ll kill you. Do it right, and you can go.” Of course, it was always possible that these guys used an all-clear code, the absence of which indicated a problem, but I didn’t think they were that smart. Besides, I hadn’t heard anything like an all-clear code on the call Benny got in my apartment.
He looked up at me, his eyes pleading. “You’ll let me go?”
“If you do this letter-perfect.” I handed him his phone.
He did it, just like I told him to. His voice sounded pretty steady. I took the phone back when he was done. He was still looking up at me from his knees. “I can go now?” he said.
Then he saw my eyes. “You promised! You promised!” he panted. “Please, I was only following orders.” He actually said it.
“Orders are a bitch,” I said, looking down at him.
He was starting to hyperventilate. “Don’t kill me! I have a wife and children!”
My hips were already swiveling into position. “I’ll have someone send flowers,” I whispered, and blasted the knife edge of my hand into the back of his neck. I felt the vertebrae splinter and he spasmed, then slumped to the ground.
There was nothing I could do but leave him there. But my apartment was already blown. I was going to have to find another, anyway, so the heat the body would bring to Sengoku would be as irrelevant as it was unavoidable.
I stepped over the body and took a few steps back to the parking area I’d passed. I heard the door to my building slam shut.
The front of the parking area was roped off, and the ropes were strung across pylons that were planted in sand. I grabbed a fistful of sand from around one of the pylons and returned to my position at the corner of the wall, peeking out past the edge. I didn’t see Benny’s buddy. Shit, he’d made a right down the narrow alley connecting my street with the one parallel to it, about fifteen meters from my apartment. I had expected him to stick to the main roads.